The Talented Trio
by Knightmare Gundam of Ni
Summary: In a magical world full of Talented witches and wizards, a particular trio of Hogwarts students bands together to face adversity...AU


Harry Potter Story: The Talented Trio Preview

Central Concepts:

Talent: A term applied to various skills an individual wizard or witch may possess, ranging from unique powers and abilities (such as Metamorphagi) to generally superior capabilities in certain fields of magic (such as Enchanters). While not all that common, they appear frequently enough to have fields of research dedicated to them, and for a 'Talent' space to be available to be filled on every magical citizen's identification file.

There are, in general, two kinds of Talents: Natural Talents, and Trained Talents, which are fairly self-explanatory. Natural Talents are those that a witch or wizard possesses from birth, and are generally fairly unique abilities and powers. They are also mostly hereditary, with noted pureblood families carefully keeping track of the potency of their family's Natural Talent throughout increasingly long genealogy charts and records. Trained Talents are somewhat more common (one out of every seven witches or wizards possessing a Trained Talent as opposed to the one out of thirteen Naturally Talented ones) and appear in those who pursue a specific field of magic with great, virtually impossible focus and intensity. They are typically ranked by the following scale:

Minor

Moderate

Greater

Major

Extreme

Master

It is rare, but possible for an individual to have two Talents, although it is always one Natural Talent and one Trained Talent, and never two Natural Talents or two Trained Talents, and a three-Talented witch or wizard has never been recorded.

Animagus: A subset of Self-Transfiguration that allows the witch or wizard to transform themselves into an animal, generally a nonmagical one, although magical animagi are known to have existed. As a rule, learned Animagi can only transform into a single animal, identifiable by a single unique marking, as well as general physical characteristics. Talented Animagi possess the ability to assume any form of a category of animals, for example, Minerva McGonagall is capable of transforming into any kind of magical or nonmagical feline, from tabby cat to sphinx to the terrifying nundu.

The following takes place during Third Year Hogsmeade visit, directly after Harry eavesdrops on McGonnagal, Hagrid, and others

- The Dragon -

Harry stormed from the door of the Three Broomsticks, ignoring the shocked gasps and mutters as he brushed past people.

Black.

Sirius Black.

Had betrayed his parents.

Sold them out.

To Voldemort.

A quiet snarl ripped itself from Harry's throat, causing a couple of fifth-year girls to freeze up and cling to each other as he passed them, still invisible under his cloak

Heading for the village limits, he deliberately shoved past the Terrible Trio of Malfoy, Crabb and Goyle, sending the blond git into a snowdrift while the two shaved apes looked on in blank confusion.

It didn't make him feel better.

Continuing to slog through the snow in fury, Harry didn't notice as it began to melt around him, leaving quite the noticeable trail as he moved for the Forbidden Forest.

Before, he'd always had a sense of trepidation, of fear of the place.

Now...now he bulled his way through the underbrush, not noticing as the his little aura caused some of the smaller plants to wilt as all the oppressive heat of a desert bore down on them.

Deeper and deeper into the forest he drove, until he came to a spot he was passingly familiar with. Cobwebs filled the spaces between the trees in the canopy above, and dark things scuttled about in the shadows.

"A morsel has come to us! Oh happy day!" A chittering voice gleefully declared, coming from an acromantula the size of a well-fed hippo that creeped up from the fore.

The rage already lit within Harry was stoked to a hot blaze, as he glared at the speaking spider, causing the intelligent beast to stutter back several steps.

"_**How dare you!" **_The guttural, growling voice from Harry spoke in neither tone nor language ever spoken by a human or acromantula, and the spider would have asked what that was, when Harry's form shifted.

Bones snapped and reformed, skin tore and stretched, with brief pangs of agony as Harry transformed.

- The Tech -

"HARRY!" Hermione called, rushing through the forest. "HARRY! Oh, where could he be going!?" She half-growled, before wrinkling her nose as, for some reason, she smelled sulfur.

"Er...I think I know where he might be going." Ron said, his face paling rapidly.

"Where?" Instead of answering, Ron slipped behind her and pointed forward, and when she turned, she saw a stampede of enormous spiders, the smallest the size of Crookshanks, charging in their direction. Before she could scream, they were upon them...actually, they were going around or over the two students, blind fear driving them on. The stampede lasted four long seconds until Hermione was left, all the plants around smashed into the dirt, as Ron cowered behind her. The sight she saw stunned her as much as the stampede.

With most of the plants stripped away or torn down by the spiders' passing, she had a clear view of the beast that raged.

Scales as red as blood flickered in the light of dusk, wings edged with the dark blue of burnt metal folded up against its side, and a maw that bled heat like saliva gaped wide in a roar.

Hermione had known of Harry's Talent since he'd turned into that black dragon that was like a salamander and cat all in one to fight off that troll in first year, and she and Ron had watched him turn into so many other unknown species of dragon. But this...

A few of the larger spiders, either more confident in their chances of defeating the dragon or simply driven to desperation by the knowledge of their all-too-likely demise, attacked the huge red dragon. One of them leaped to attack it's head, only for a six-and-a-half meter tail to smash it mid-air, sending the spider to smash against a sturdy tree, its exoskeleton splitting wide open and spilling guts and ichor onto the forest floor.

Another spider leaped, and made it this time...only for its fangs to skitter off of the scales, and a massive set of claws to rip it apart when the dragon got a hold of it.

Three dozen more acromantulas, larger, older, some of them only somewhat smaller than the old and huge Aragog, leaped down from the treetops around the dragon. They circled it cautiously, some of the smaller, and presumably younger ones, hissing at it.

And then in a flash of scarlet, the dragon was upon them, its great maw clamping shut on one in the center of the densest grouping of the giant spiders while both foreclaws cleaved through another seven of them, splitting exoskeletons apart and severing legs and heads.

Around ten of the spiders, each the size of a baby elephant, banded together to rush the red.

It failed miserably. The dragon's maw opened wide, and instead of a roar, an enormous gout of flame lashed out in a cone that blazed over all of the spiders, immolating them and inflaming the trees.

Another exhalation of flame immolated another grouping of the spiders, their horrifically human-sounding screams filling the forest air.

Hermione was a big Tolkien fan. She'd read The Hobbit years ago, and had her father and mother sing her some of the sings in that book, but now a few lines from one specific one stuck with her in this moment.

_"The fire was red,  
It flaming spread,  
The trees like torches,  
blazed with light,"_

The Red Dragon turned, eyes of molten magma with blood-red slits of pupils glaring at the two.

- The Author -

Alright, so here's a little taste of one of the many projects that consumed me over the summer, conceived by me and a friend. It's just going to be this preview for a long while, since I'm still working on other projects, but I hope this whets you guys' appetites.

Knightmare Gundam of Ni


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